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LOCALS

At 944,735 square kilometres (364,764 square miles), BC is about the size of France, Germany and the Netherlands combined. It’s larger than the total area of Washington, Oregon and California.

UPN’s membership is spread throughout this vast area making servicing the area from a central location unwieldly and inefficient.

To better meet membership needs the Union divided the Province into 5 service areas or “locals”. Locals are the cornerstone of the union’s democratic structure, and a key communications link between the work site and the provincial union.

Every UPN member belongs to a union local, which is the front-line mechanism for dealing with grievances, workplace issues and grassroots campaigns.

Locals meet on a regular basis. Each year, local members elect their own executive officers – such as chair, secretary, and treasurer. Members also elect – or their local executive appoints – shop stewards, and occupational health and safety representatives.

Through their locals, members also elect delegates to attend UPN’s Annual Convention, and other provincial or regional membership meetings.

The current Executive, delegates to Convention, and Stewards for each Local can be viewed by “clicking” the appropriate Local on the navigation bar to the left.

The following “Locals” are currently active:

Local 1 – Northern Health Authority & Interior Health Authority

This is a new “geographic” local that represents all worksites within the geographic parameters of the Northern Health Authority (NHA) and the Interior Health Authority (IHA). As well, it includes facilities that are not part of either the NHA or IHA such as the Prince George Forensic Psychiatric Clinic which is under the auspices of the Provincial Health Authority (PHSA). This is UPN’s largest geographic local by area.

Northern Health provides health services to 300,000 people over an area of 600,000 square kilometers in the province of British Columbia.

Interior Health is responsible for ensuring publicly-funded health services are provided to over 742,000 residents of the Southern Interior. Interior Health serves a large geographic area covering almost 216,000 square kilometres and includes larger cities such as Kelowna, Kamloops, Cranbrook, Trail, Penticton and Vernon, as well as a multitude of more rural and remote communities.

Local 2 – Forensic Psychiatric Hospital – PHSA

Although situated within the Fraser Health Authority boundaries, FPH is operated under the auspices of the Provincial Health Services Authority. PHSA operates provincial agencies including BC Children’s Hospital and BC Transplant, but PHSA is also responsible for specialized provincial health services like trauma and chest surgery, which are delivered in a number of locations across the province. Through the Emergency and Health Services Commission, PHSA oversees the BC Ambulance Service, BC Bedline and BC Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital.

VCHA serves 25% of BC’s population, that’s over 1 million people including the residents of Vancouver, Richmond, the North Shore and Coast Garibaldi, Sea-to-Sky, Sunshine Coast, Powell River, Bella Bella and Bella Coola.

Fraser Health Authority serves more than 1.6 million people including residents from Burnaby to Hope to Boston Bar including Approximately 38,100 First Nations people, associated with 32 bands and Large Asian, Indo-Canadian, Korean, and Filipino populations.

Local 5 – Vancouver Island Health Authority

The Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) provides health care to more than 765,000 people on Vancouver Island, the islands of the Georgia Strait, and in the mainland communities north of Powell River and south of Rivers Inlet.